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UNIVERSITY  OF 

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THE   COLLECTION  OF 
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ADDRESS 


DELIVERED      BBFOEE      THE 


€m  litniirt}  liuietie 


UNIVERSITY  OP  NORTH-CAROLINA. 


June  6,  1855, 


BY 

GEORGE    DAVIS,    ESa., 

OF  WILMINGTON. 


RALEIGH: 

HOLDEN  &  WILSON,  "STANDARD"  OFFICE. 
1855. 


Dialectic  Hall,  Jnm  8,  1855. 
''6m.. 

We  beg  leave,  in  behalf  of  the  Dialectic  Society,  to  tender  the  sincere  thanks  ol 
that  body  foi*  your  very  able  and  interesting  Address  before  the  two  Literary  Soci 
eties ;  and  we  hereby  respectfully  request  a  copy  of  the  same  for  publication. 

Permit  us,  Sir,  to  add  our  personal  solicitations  to  those  of  the  Society  we  re- 
present, with  the  hope  that  you  will  not  deny  our  State  so  patriotic  a  sketch  of  some 
of  Iier  noblest  sons. 

Very  respectfully, 


WM.  BIXCxHAM, 

A.  H.  MEKRITT,   >  CamrnitUs. 

J.  C.  WADDILL, 


I, 


Cho.  Davis,  Esq. 


Wilmington,  June  16,  1855, 
Ohstlemen : 

I  cheerfully  comply  with  your  request  in  furnishing  for  publication  a  copy  of  tho 
Address  delivered  by  me  before  the  two  Literary  Societies  of  the  University.  Be 
pleased  to  ^press  to  the  Dialectic  Society  my  cordial  thanks  for  their  kind  apprecia- 
tion of  my  humble  attempt  to  illuminate  a  dark  page  of  our  history,  and  to  accept  for 
yourselves  the  expression  of  mj'  high  respect  and  esteem. 

Very  respectfully  yours, 

GEO.  DAVIS 

Messrs.  Wsr.  Bingham, 

-  A.  H.  Mereitt,  )■  CwaniitUe, 
J.  C.  Wasdill, 


; 


ADDRESS. 


■:.i 


Gentlemen  of  the  Pldlanthvopic  and  DialectiG  Societies 

To  stand  liere  as  a  teacher,  while  so  profoundly  feeling  how 
much  I  need  to  be  taught — to  offer  light  from  my  own  dark- 
ness— and  to  attempt  the  paths  which  have  already  been  im- 
pressed and  adorned  by  the  footprints  of  Mur])hy,  Gaston, 
Badger,  and  so  many  other  distinguished  men — this  is  the 
difficult  task  which  your  partiality  has  assigned  to  me.  And 
if  I  had  accepted  it  in  a  vainglorious  spirit  of  self-esteem,  or 
from  any  motive  but  an  honest  desire  towards  the  perform- 
ance of  a  duty,  I  could  not  easily  have  pardoned  my  own 
rashness.  But,  born  a  son  of  North-Carolina,  reared  a  child 
of  this  noble  old  college,  and  cherishing  the  fondest  aflection 
for  them  both,  and  the  deepest  interest  in  all  which  concerns 
their  w^elfare  and  advancement,  I  have  not  felt  at  liberty  to 
consult  my  own  inclination.  And  I  have  returned,  at  your 
bidding,  to  this  shrine  of  learning,  as  a  child  to  its  mother, 
bringing  my  simple  tribute  with  a  loving  heart ;  and  trusting 
to  disarm  your  criticism  by  the  ready  candor  with  which  its 
worthlessness  is  acknowledged. 

The  historian  of  the  United  States*  has  complained  of  the 
carelessness  with  which  the  history  of  l^orth-Carolina  has  been 
written.  The  reproach  is  but  too  just.  As  Colony  and  State 
not  yet  two  centuries  old,  the  story  of  her  infancy  and  early 
progress  is  a  sealed  book  to  the  many,  and  to  the  curious  few 
is  more  imperfectly  known  than  that  of  nations  which  flour- 
ished and  decayed  thousands  of  years  ago.  And  if  this  is 
true  of  the  State  at  large,  it  is  eminently  so  of  that  section  of 
it  in  which  I  live.  The  Cape  Fear  country  has  never  had  a 
historian.  Its  public  records  were  always  meagre  and  barren. 
Its  private  records,  once  rich  and  fruitful  sources  of  history, 
have  become  much  mutilated  and  impaired  in  the  lapse  of 
time  by  accident,  and  by  the  division  and  emigration  of  fami- 
lies.    Its  traditions  are  perishing,  and  are  buried  daily  with 

*  Bancroft  2—135.    Note. 


% 

our  dead,  as  the  old  are  passing  away.  And  tlie  little  wliicli 
iias  been  preserved  hj  tlie  pen  of  tlie  historian  is  scattered 
through  volumes,  most  of  which  are  rare,  and  some  of  them 
entirely  out  of  print.  I  have  thought,  therefore,  that,  instead 
of  sermonizing  upon  themes  which  were  long  ago  threadbare, 
I  could  not  better  employ  my  allotted  hour,  than  in  giving 
you  a  sketch,  imperfect  as  it  may  be,  of  the  early  Times  and 
Men  of  the  lower  Cape  Fear.  I  shall  not  aspire  to  the  dig- 
nity of  history.  My  time  and  opportunities  for  research  have 
been  too  limited,  and  the  subject  is  too  full  for  the  compass 
of  an  ordinary  addi-ess.  I  assume  the  humbler,  but  still  pious, 
duty  of  connecting  recorded  facts,  of  perpetuating  traditions, 
and  of  plucking  away  the  mosses  which  have  gatliered  on 
the  tombs  of  some  of  our  illustrious  dead.  In  so  doing.  I 
may  be  accused  of  sectional  pride.  But  I  can  afford  to  brave 
such  a  charge ;  for  I  feel  that  the  motive  is  higher  and  purer ; 
that  it  springs  from  a  loyal  devotion  to  the  honor  of  my  whole 
State,  and  a  sincere  admiration  for  the  character  of  her  whole 
people,  and  especially  of  her  good  and  great  that  are  now  no 
more.  My  single  desire  is  to  awaken  a  new  interest  in  her 
history,  by  assuring  you  that  you  will  find  there  her  amplest 
vindication  from  the  taunts  and  aspersions  which  are  so  freely 
'flung  against  her.  And  I  would  fain  hope  that  I  need  ftffer 
no  apology  for  my  subject,  since  I  come  to  speak  to  Kofth- 
Carolinians  of  things  that  touch  nearly  the  fame  of  the  good 
old  State,  and  the  memory  of  her  noble  dead. 

I  begin,  now,  ray  sketcli  with  some  passages  from  English 
history,  extracting  first  from  Hume's  account  of  the  Irish 
Rebellion  of  1641.*  "  There  was  a  gentleman  called  Roger 
More,  who,  though  of  a  narrow  fortune,  was  descended  from 
an  ancient  Irish  family,  and  was  much  celebrated  among  his 
countrymen  for  valor  and  capacity.  This  man  firs#*formed 
the  project  of  expelling  the  English,  and  asserting  the  inde- 
pendency of  his  native  country.  Ho  secretly  went  from 
chieftain  to  dhieftain,  and  roused  up  every  latent  principle  of 
discontent.  He  maintained  a  close  correspondence  with  Lord 
Maguire  and  Sir  Phelim  O'jSTeale,  the  most  powerful  of  the 
old  Irish.  *  By  conversation,  by  letters,  by  his  emissaries,  he 
represented  to  his  countrymen  the  motives  of  a  revolt,"  &c, 

*  Hist.  Eng„  ch.  55, 


"By  these  considerations,  More  engaged  all  the  heads  of  tiie 
native  Irish  in  the  conspiracy." 

It  is  not  ni}''  pm-pose  to  pnrsne  tlic  liistory  of  this  rcLelhon. 
^  It  was  disastrous  to  the  Irish ;  and  deservedly  so,  for  they 
disgraced  themselves  hy  barharities  which  shock  hnmanity. 
With  these,  however,  it  is  certain  that  More  and  Magnire 
had  nothing  to  do.  For  Maguire  was  taken  in  the  outset 
of  the  revolt  at  the  nnsuccessful  attack  upon  tlie  Castle  of 
Dublin,  and  was  condemned  and  executed.""'  And  of  More, 
Hume  himself  says : — "  The  generous  nature  of  More  was 
shocked  at  the  recital  of  such  enormous  cruelties.  He  flew 
to  O'xieale's  camp ;  but  found  that  his  authority,  which  was 
sufficient  to  excite  the  L-isli  to  insurrection,  was  too  feeble  to 
restrain  their  inhumanity.  Soon  after  he  abandoned  a  cause 
polluted  by  so  many  crimes ;  and  he  retired  into  Flanders." 

He  must  have  been  a  man  of  no  ordinary  character,  and 
justly  entitled  to  the  admiration  of  all  lovers  of  freedom,  who, 
though  driven  into  exile,  and  branded  as  a  rebel  and  a  traitor, 
could  yet  draw  forth  language  like  the  foregoing  from  the 
apologist  and  defender  of  the  Stuarts !  Fortunately,  the 
world  will  not  now  take  its  definition  of  treason  from  those 
who  bow  to  the  divine  right  of  kings. 

Two  years  later  another  event  occurred,  of  minor  impor- 
tance in  English  history,  but  worthy  of  notice  here.  In  1643, 
the  city  of  Bristol  was  captured  by  the  forces  of  the  Parlia- 
ment. At  that  time  Eobert  Yeoman,  or  Yeamans,  was 
sheriff,  or  as  some  say,  an  alderman  of  the  city,  and  active 
and  zealous  in  the  service  of  the  king;  and  after  its  sur- 
render, he  was  condemned  and  executed  for  his  loyalty.f  It 
may  not  be  amiss  to  add  here,  as  a  historical  curiosity,  the 
following  extract  from  the  7th  volume  of  the  Edinburg  An- 
nual Register : — "  March  16th,  1814.  On  opening  a  vault  at 
St.  Maryport  Church,  Bristol,  the  workmen  discovered,  very 
deeply  concealed,  a  coffin  of  great  antiquity.  It  is  generally 
supposed  that  the  corpse  it  contained  was  that  of Yeo- 
man, sheriff  of  Bristol  in  1643,  when  the  city  was  surren- 
dered to  the  parliamentary  army  by  Prince  Rupert.  Mr. 
Yeoman  was  hanged  in  Wine-street,  opposite  his  own  house, 
by  order  of  Fairfax,  for  his  attachment  to  the  royal  cause, 

*  Hist.  Eng.,  ch.  55.  Note  K.  3.    t  Hewit,  in  Carr.  Coll,  1—52. 


8 

The  body  was  in  the  highest  state  of  preservation,  hand- 
somely accoutred  in  the  costume  of  the  day,  with  gloves  simi- 
lar to  those  which  the  sheriffs  at  present  wear.  And  there 
were  considerable  timiors  visible  in  the  neck,  which  inclined 
several  medical  gentlemen  who  inspected  the  body,  to  be  of 
opinion  that  they  were  occasioned  by  strangulation." 

It  will  appear  hereafter  how  these  two  events — the  rebel- 
lion and  exile  of  More,  and  the  execution  of  Yefimans — so 
entirely  disconnected  in  history,  have  a  very  important  bear- 
ing upon  the  subject  of  this  sketch. 

Tlie  earliest  settlement  upon  the  Cape  Fear  was  made  by  a 
band  of  emigrants  from  New  England,  principally  from  Mas- 
sachusetts, about  the  period  of  the  Kestoration.  The  precise 
date  is  not  known,  but  it  was  in  1660  or  1661.*  They  settled 
on  the  western  side  of  the  river,  on  the  borders  of  Old  Town 
Creek,  or,  as  it  is  now  commonly  called.  Town  Creek,  about 
nine  miles  below  Wilmington,  and  attempted  to  establish 
grazing  farms.  But  the  country  was  unsuited  to  that  pur- 
'pose,  the  low  lands  upon  the  river  being  fitted  only  for  the 
cultivation  of  rice,  which  had  not  then  been  introduced  into 
America ;  and  the  high  lands  being  principally  pine  barrens. 
The  settlers,  too,  neglected  to  secure  the  good  will  of  the 
Indians ;  and  they  soon  fell  into  the  greatest  distress.  Mas- 
sachusetts, "  the  young  mother  of  colonies,"  heard  the  cry  of 
her  children  in  the  wilderness,  "  Kstened  to  their  prayer  for 
some  relief  in  their  distress,  and  ministered  to  their  wants  by 
a  general  contribution  through  her  settlements."!  One  hun- 
dred and  ten  years  afterwards,  when  the  Boston  Port  Bill  had 
spread  a  pall  of  gloom  and  distress  over  New  England,  the 
people  of  the  Cape  Fear  remembered  the  generous  succor  of 
Massachusetts.  With  one  voice  they  declared  that  "the 
cause  of  Boston  was  the  cause  of  all."  Their  Committees 
determined  that  all  goods  imported  contrary  to  the  resolve  of 
the  Continental  Congress,  should  be  seized  and  sold ;  and  the 
proceeds,  after  deducting  the  first  cost,  should  be  sent  to  the 
poor  of  Boston.:}:  They  did  more.  They  chartered  a  vessel, 
loaded  her  with  provisions  at  a  cost  of  eight  hundred  pounds, 
and  sent  her  to  the  relief  of  the  sufferers  by  the  Boston  Port 
Bili.§    It  were  well  if  the  people  of  New  England  would 

*  Banc,  tJ.  S.,  2—181  ;  Martin,  1—137 ;  Williamson,  1—95.  +  Banc,  2—132. 
;  Letter  of  Wm.  Hill,  Un.  Mag.  May,  1853.     §  Jones  Def.  No.  Ca.  12G. 


9 

pause  in  their  career  of  fanatleism,  to  ponder  and  remember 
things  hke  these  ! 

The  timel}^  aid  tlms  received  from  Massachusetts  was  not 
snthcient,  however,  for  the  rehef  of  the  colonists  ;  and  unable 
to  endure  their  many  dithculties  and  privations,  they  aban- 
doned their  settlement  in  a  short  time,  and  returned  to  Is  ew 
England."'^' 

By  the  Great  Charter  of  1GG3,  King  Charles  II,  granted  to 
•  the  Lords  Proprietors  all  the  country  from  the  Atlantic  to  the 
Pacific  Ocean,  between  the  parallels  of  thirty-one  and  thirty- 
six  degrees  of  north  latitude.  Truly  a  most  magnificent  do- 
main !  And  for  what  was  it  given?  We  know  well  his  obli- 
gations to  Monk.  "We  might  even  suppose,  in  an  excess  of 
charity,  that  he  was  not  ungrateful  to  Clarendon  for  his  fidel- 
ity to  his  house.  But  was  such  the  considei'ation  ?  The  grant 
expresses  that  they  had  manifested  "a  pious  and  laudable 
zeal  for  the  propagation  of  the  gospel;" — the  careless,  disso- 
lute, profligate  Charles,  moved  by  a  pious  zeal,  and  that  zeal 
emanating  from  the  covetous  and  king-worshipping  Claren- 
don— the  artful  dissimulator.  Monk — ''  the  passionate,  ignor- 
ant, and  not  too  honest  Sir  George  Carteret,"t  and  the  facile 
Shaftesbury,  who,  according  to  Pepys,  "  would  not  scruple  to  • 
rob  the  devil  or  the  altar  !":j:  AVe  are  tempted  to  believe  it 
a  solemn  jest  of  the  witty  monarch. 

But  whatever  we  may  think  of  the  Proprietors'  zeal  for  tlie 
gospel,  we  cannot  doubt  the  extent  of  their  zeal  for  their  pri- 
vate fortunes.  They  immediately  began  to  devise  measures 
for  encouraging  emigration.  The  civil  wars  in  England  and 
Ireland  had  broken  down  many  ancient  families,  and  ruined 
their  estates.  Il^umbers  of  these  had  already  gone  to  the  new 
w^orld  in  the  hope  of  bettering  their  fortunes,  and  many  others 
were  ready  to  foUow.  They  spread  everywhere  the  most 
glowing  accounts  of  the  splendors  of  their  new  domain.  They 
ofiered  large  bounties  of  land  at  trifling  quit  rents.  They 
procured  the  celebrated  John  Locke  to  devise  a  scheme  of 
government  which  they  deemed  the  perfection  of  human  wis- 
dom, and  proudly  decreed  to  be  "  sacred  and  unalterable." 
With  its  high-sounding  titles  of  honor,  and  its  far  more  jyre- 
cious  guaranty  of  religious  freedom,  it  captivated  the  imagi- 

*Martml— 117;  Banc.  2— 132.    t  Banc.  2— 129.     t  Pepys  1—219. 

■   ■         ■    ■         r\.^  .  ■        , 


10 

nations  of  men  ;  and  they  did  not  stop  to  question  its  adapta- 
tion to  the  condition  of  tlie  people  and  the  country  it  was  to 
govern.  In  16GG  there  Avas  publislied  by  Robert  Home,  in 
London,  with  the  approval,  if  not  at  the  instigation  of  the 
Proprietors,  "A  brief  description  of  the  Province  of  Caroli- 
na," "  wherein  is  set  forth  the  healthfulness  of  the  air,  the  fer- 
tility of  the  earth  and  waters,  and  the  great  pleasure  and  profit 
will  accrue  to  those  that  shall  go  thither  to  enjoy  the  same." 
xVfter  displaying  in  the  most  attractive  colors  the  riches  of 
this  new  Canaan,  it  apjDeals  thus  to  the  youth  of  both  sexes — 
"  Is  there  therefore  any  younger  Brother  who  is  born  of  Gen- 
tile blood,  and  whose  spirit  is  elevated  above  the  common  sort, 
and  3^et  the  hard  usage  of  our  Country  hath  not  allowed  suit- 
able fortune ;  he  will  not  surely  be  afraid  to  leave  his  ISTative 
Soil  to  advance  his  Fortune  equal  to  his  Blood  and  Spirit." 
*'  If  any  Maid  or  Single  Woman  have  a  desire  to  go  over,  they 
will  think  themselves  in  the  Golden  Age,  when  Men  paid  a 
Dowry  for  their  AVives;  for  if  they  be  but  Civil,  and  under 
50  years  of  Age,  some  honest  Man  or  other  will  purchase  them 
for  wives.""  ., 

Thus  praised  and  painted,  the  Province  of  Carolina  showed 
golden  visions  to  all  sorts  of  men.  Pious  Puritans,  weary  of 
persecution,  and  yearning  for  freedom  of  conscience — sons  of 
Cavaliers  who  had  squandered  their  estates  for  the  smiles  o"^ 
worthless  king — adventurous  merchants,  and  humble  arti- 
sans— quiet  Quakers,  who  loved  the  law  of  peace,  and  turbu- 
lent spirits  who  loved  no  law — all  looked  to  it  alike  as  a  land 
which  was  to  bless  them,  each  with  their  peculiar  desires,  and 
all  with  a  common  wealth.  The  already  settled  portions  of 
the  new  world  first  caught  the  infection  ;  as  men  who  haA^e 
once  abandoned  the  homes  of  their  youth  are  ever  ready  for 
further  change.  Soon  after  the  proposals  of  the  Proprietors 
were  first  published,  some  gentlemen  of  Barbadoes,  <dissatis- 
fied  with  their  condition,  and  tempted  by  the  libei-al  offers 
which  tliose  proposals  held  out,  in  September  1663,  dispatched 
a  vessel  under  command  of  Capt.  Hilton  to  reconnoitre  the 
country  along  the  Cape  Fear  river.f  They  explored  both 
branches  of  the  river  for  many  miles ;  and  it  is  remarkable 
that  two  noted  places,  named  by  them  Stag  Park,  and  Rocky 

*  Printed  in  Carr.  Coll.     t  Martin  1—130;  Williamson  1—96. 


11 

Point,  are  so  called  and  Itiiown  at  this  day.  Returning  to 
Barbadoos  in  February,  166-1,  tliey  publislied  an  agreeable  ac- 
count of  their  vo3'age  and  of  the  country  which  they  had  been 
sent  to  examine.  Among  the  planters  who  had  fitted  out  this 
expedition  was  John  Yeamans,  eldest  son  of  Robert  Yeanians. 
the  sheritf  of  Bristol,  who  had  been  hanged  at  the  taking  of 
that  city  in  IGio.'"''  lie  had  emigrated  to  Barbadoes  with  the: 
view  of  mending  his  fortunes  ;  and  being  pleased  with  the  re- 
port of  the  expedition,  he  determined  to  remove  to  Carolina. 
He  went  to  England  to  negotiate  with  the  Proprietors,  and 
receiv^ed  from  them  a  grant  of  large  tracts  of  land ;  and  at  the 
same  time  he  was  knighted  by  the  king  in  reward  for  the 
loyalty  and  misfortunes  of  his  family.f  Returning  from  Eng- 
land, in  the  autumn  of  1665,  he  led  a  band  of  colonists  from 
Barbadoes  to  the  Cape  Fear,  and,  induced  by  the  traces  of 
civilization  which  were  left  by  the  Xew  England  colon}",  he 
pitched  upon  the  spot  they  had  inhabited;  and  purchasing 
from  the  Indians  a  tract  of  land,  thirty  two  miles  scpiare,  he 
laid  the  foundations  of  a  town  which  he  called  Charleston,  in 
honor  of  the  reigning  monarch.  Martin;];  and  Bancroft§  de- 
clare that  the  site  of  this  town  is  still  a  matter  of  uncertainty ; 
but  the  douljt  is  only  with  the  historians.  Tradition  has  fixed 
the  spot  beyond  dispute.  It  is  on  the  north  side  of  Old  Town 
Creek,  at  its  junction  with  the  river,  nine  miles  below  Wil- 
mington, on  the  plantation  uoav  owned  by  Thomas  Cowan, 
Esq.  There  have  not  been  any  visible  traces  of  the  town 
within  the  memory  of  living  men.  But  in  the  oldest  deed  for 
this  plantation  extant,  and  which  was  a  conveyance  from  the 
great  grandson  of  Yeamans  in  1761,  it  is  cahed  the  Old  Town 
Plantation.  The  colony  was  erected  into  a  County,  and  called 
Clarendon ;  and  Sir  John  Yeamans  was  appointed  Governor, 
and  managed  its  affairs  with  prudence  and  discretion.  It 
prospered  for  a  time,  and  the  emigration  from  Barbadoes  was 
so  great,  that  the  legislature  there  found  it  necessary  to  pass 
an  act  to  forljid  the  sjAriting  of  jyeople  of  the  island.]  In  1666 
the  settlement  is  said  to  have  numbered  eight  hundred  in- 
habitants.^ But  the  same  restless  spirit  of  adventure  which 
had  l)rought  the  colonists  over,  soon  induced  many  of  them  to 
wander  farther  southward,  and  settle  on  the  lands  along  the 

*  Hewit, in  Carr.  Coll.  1—52.     t  Martin  2— 142.     J  1—1^2.    §2—137.     |i  Martin  1— 
143.    1  Williamspn  1—100. 
■9 


12 

Cooper  and  Ashley  rivers.  Upon  the  deatli  of  Gov.  Sayle  in 
1671,  Sir  John  Yeamans  was  appointed  Governor  of  Carteret 
County,  afterwards  Soiith-Carohna  ;  and  in  the  same  year  he 
removed  thither  from  the  Cape  Fear,  and  many  of  the  princi- 
pal inhahitants  went  v/ith  him.  From  that  time  the  settle- 
ment at  Old  Town  languished,  until  at  length,  before  the  year 
1690,  it  was  completely  abandoned,  and  the  Indians  were 
again  sole  masters  of  the  soil.*  Thus  failed  the  second  well 
organized  effort  to  settle  the  County  of  Clarendon.  And  here 
the  Cape  Fear  country  is  dismissed  from  history. 

It  is  very  remarkable  that  while  these  two  early  and  inef- 
fectual eftbrts  to  fix  civilisation  there  are  related  by  historians 
with  some  minuteness  of  detail,  not  one  records  when,  how, 
or  by  whom,  its  permanent  settlement  was  effected  so  many 
years  afterwards.  And  so  vague  has  even  tradition  become 
in  the  lapse  of  years,  that,  though  we  know  the  manner  and 
the  men,  we  cannot  now  fix  the  time  with  any  precision. 

After  this  second  abandonment  of  the  settlements  on  the 
Cape  Fear,  the  country  along  that  river  fell  for  a  time  into 
great  disrepute.  The  Indians  behaved  with  savage  barbarity 
to  all  who,  by  shipwreck,  or  other  accident,  were  thrown  with- 
in their  reach.  And  the  mouth  of  the  river  becamepythe  har- 
bor of  the  noted  pirates.  Steed  Bonnet  and  Eichard  Worley, 
from  whence  they  watched  and  preyed  upon  the  commerce 
of  Charleston  and  the  West  Indies,  until  they  were  routed 
and  destroyed  by  the  ships  under  the  command  of  Gov.  Rob- 
ert Johnson  and  the  brave  William  Rhett.f 

In  the  last  decade  of  the  seventeenth  century  a  name  ap- 
pears in  the  history  of  South-Carolina,  destined  soon  to  be 
distinguished  there,  and  near  a  century  latep  to  become  still 
more  illustrious  in  the  annals  of  the  Cape  Fear.  The  head  of 
this  family  was  James  Moore,  the  descendant,  and  it  is  be- 
lieved the  grandson;]:  of  Roger  More,  who  led  the  Irish  Re- 
bellion in  1611.  In  the  wreck  of  his  family  and  fortunes  he, 
too,  like  so  many  others,  had  looked  towards  the  setting  sun, 
and  fixed  his  eyes  upon  the  "  summer  land "  of  Carolina. 
Ho  had  inherited  all  the  rebellious  blood  of  his  grandsire  ;  his 
love  of  freedom,  his  generous  ambition,  and  his  bold  and  tur- 
bulent spirit.     He  soon  acquired  great  influence  in  the  pro- 

*  Williamson  1—118.  t  In  1717.— Carr.  Coll.  1—209.  J  Johnson's  Trad,  and 
Rem.  of  the  Revolution,  230. 


18 

vince,  and  upon  the  death  of  Gov.  Blake  in  1700,  lie  was  elec- 
ted Governor  b}^  the  deputies  ol  the  Proprietors.  His  char- 
acter is  not  free  from  reproach ;  but  his  faults  were  those  of 
the  times,  and  of  the  country  in  which  he  lived.  Heisi'cpre- 
sented  to  have  been  rapacious  ;  but  in  the  universal  spii-it  of 
self-aggrandizement  which  then  prevailed,  it  would  have  been 
wonderful  if  he  alone  had  been  modest  and  self-denjing. 
And  although  his  short  administration  has  been  severely  cen- 
sured, it  is  well  to  remember  that  those  who  speak  of  him  in 
the  harshest  terms  professedly  found  their  accounts  upon  the 
representations  of  his  enemies.  If  he  was  ambitious  and  ar- 
bitrary, he  was  also  active,  intelligent,  brave,  true  to  his 
friends,  and  of  great  influence  with  the  people. 

This  Governor  James  Moore  married  the  daughter  of  Sir 
John  Yeamans ;  and  thus,  by  a  singular  fortune,  these  fami- 
lies, which  had  suliered  from  such  opposite  causes  in  the  old 
world,  became  united  in  the  new;  and  the  blood  of  Robert 
Yeamans  and  of  Roger  More — of  the  loyalist  victim  and  the 
exiled  rebel — mingled  in  Carolina  to  breed  some  of  the  no- 
blest champions  of  her  freedom,  and  the  pioneers  of  perma- 
nent civihzatibn  upon  the  Cape  Fear. 

Of  this  union  there  were  born  ten  children.  The  oldest, 
James,  was  a  genuine  scion  of  the  stock  from  which  he  sprung. 
His  character,  perhaps,  does  not  appropriately  belong  to  Xoi-tli 
Carolina  history.  But  it  is  worthy  the  contemplation  of  all; 
and  the  jjeople  of  the  Cape  Fear,  especially,  hold  it  in  rever- 
ence. He  was  not  of  them ;  but  he  was  of  the  blood  of  th.ose 
who  subsequently  became  their  shining  exemplars  of  honor 
and  self-sacrificing  patriotism.  He  acquired  military  renown 
in  the  campaigns  against  the  Indians ;  but  he  is  chiefly  known 
and  loved  as  the  champion  of  the  people,  and  the  zealous  de- 
fender of  their  rights  against  the  encroachments  of  arbitrary 
power.  In  1719,  when  the  quarrel  of  the  people  with  the 
government  had  proceeded  to  an  open  rupture,  true  to  the 
instincts  of  his  race,  he  was  with  the  people,  and  against  the 
government.  And  when  they  met  in  convention  and  resolved 
to  have  a  governor  of  their  own  choosing,  "'  they  elected  the 
brave  James  Moore,  whom  all  the  country  allowed  to  be  the 
fittest  person  for  undertaking  its  defence."*     "  He  was  a  man 

*  Banc.  3—329. 


-z- 


14 

of  tLirbulent  disposition,  find  excellcntlj  qualified  for  being  a  ""^ 
]Mjpular  leader  in  perilous  adventures.  To  Governor  Jolmston 
he  Avas  no  friend,  having  been  by  liim  removed  from  the  com- 
mand of  the  militia,  for  Avarmlj  espousing  the  cause  of  the 
people;  to  the  Proprietors  he  "was  an  inveterate  enemy.  In 
every  enterprise  he  had  been  a  volunteer,  and  in  whatever 
lie  engaged  he  continued  to  his  purpose,  steady  and  mflexi- 
])le."*  They  proclaimed  him  Governor;  and,  with  the  pro- 
clamation went  up  the  expiring  sigh  of  the  Proprietary  gov- 
ernment, and  peacefully,  and  without  bloodshed,  palatines, 
landgraves,  and  caciques  vanished  from  Carolina.f 

In  1711,  1712  and  1713,  occurred  the  celebrated  Indian 
wars,  which  you  will  find  fufiy  detailed  in  history ;  in  the  be- 
ginning of  which  the  first  historian  of  North-Carolina:]:  fell 
the  earliest  victim  of  savage  cruelty.  In  1713,  the  second 
James  Moore  commanded  the  forces  which  wei*e  sent  by 
( iov.  Graven  to  the  succor  of  the  I^orth-Garolinians ;  and  af- 
ter -a  severe  engagement  near  the  site  of  the  present  village 
of  Snow  Hill,  in  Greene  county,§  he  succeeded  in  entirely 
Ijreaking  the  power,  and  subduing  the  spirit  of  the  warlike 
Tuscaroras.  He  remained  in  North-Carolina  seven  months. 
History  makes  no  mention  of  any  of  his  family  but  himself 
in  this  expedition  ;  but  tradition  relates  that  he  was  accompa- 
nied by  his  yomiger  brother,  Maurice.  And  two  years  later, 
in  1715,  this  brother  commanded  a  troop  of  horse  in  the  ser- 
vice of  Gov.  Eden,  and  marched  to  the  O^pe  Fear  to  subdue  ' 
the  Indians  tliQre,||  "which  were  reckoned  tkfe  most  barbar- 
ous of  any  in  the  Colony."^  To  this  gentleman.  Col.  Mau- 
rice Moore,  the  permanent  settlement  and  civilization  of  the 
Cape  Fear  are  principally  due.  He  had  been  favorably  im- 
pressed with  the  aspect  of  the  country  in  his  expedition 
against  the  Indians ;  and  perhaps  he  cherished  some  pious 
regard  for  it  as  the  first  American  home  of  his  grandfather, 
^Sir  John  Yeamans.  And  soon  after  his  return  to  South-Caro- 
lina he  determined  to  remove  to  the  northern  Province.  I 
infer  that  he  went  first  to  the  Chowan,  from  the  fact  that  in 
1718,  three  years  after  his  expedition  against  the  Cape  Fear 
Indians,  he  was  concerned  with  Edward  Mosely  and  four  or 
five  other  gentlemen  of  that  precinct,  the  old  adherents  of 

*  Hcwit  in  Carr.  Coll.  1—288.    +  Banc    S— D50.    t  Lawson.    §  Martin,  1—261. 
I  Mariin,  1—274.   "i  Old  mixon  in  Carr.  Coll.,  2— MO. 


15 

President  Ciiiy,  in  forcibly  taking  possession  of  the  pnbiic 
records  in  the  otHce  of  John  Lovick,  the  Depnty  Secretary,'-'' 
and  from  the  additional  feet,  that  when  he  removed  to  tlu; 
C-dpe  Fear,  his  second  danghter  was  then  married  to  Joim 
Porter,  who  liac]  long  been  a  resident  of  Chowan.  He  is 
supposed  to  have  settled  upon  the  Cape  Fear  about  the  year 
1723. f  His  are  the  earliest  grants  for  land  npon  that  river 
noAV  extant ;  and  the  first  of  them  are  dated  in  17^5.  Ho 
came  not  alone,  but  l)rought  with  him  the  germ  of  a  nobki 
colony.  His  brothers,  Eoger  and  Xathaniel,  and  the  family 
of  his  brother  John,  then  dead — his  son-in-law,  John  Porter, 
and  his  mother,  Mrs.  Sarah  Porter,  the  daughter  of  Maj.  Al- 
exander Lillington^his  sister,  Mrs.  Cliiford,  who  had  for- 
merly been  the  wife  of  his  father's  staunch  friend  and  sup- 
porter, Job  Howe,:{:  and  wlio  was  the  grandmother  of  the 
afterwards  celebrated  Gen.  Ilobert  Howe — his  nephews  Jol) 
and  Joseph  Howe,  and  tlie  family  of  the  brave  Col.  Kobt. 
Daniel,  his  lather's  old  comrade  in  arms — these,  and  others  of 
a  like  stamp,  came  with  him.  They  were  no  needy  adven- 
turers, driven  by  necessity — no  unlettered  boors,  ill  at  ease 
in  the  haunts  of  civilization,  and  seeking  their  proper  sphere 
amidst  the  barbarism  of  the  savages.  They  were  gentlemen 
of  birth  and  education,  bred  in  the  refinements  of  polished 
societ}',  and  bringing  with  them  ample  fortunes,  gentle  man- 
ners, and  cultivated  luinds.  Most  of  them  united  by  the  ties 
of  blood,  and  all  by  those  of  friendship,  they  came  as  one 
household,  sufiicient  to  themselves,  and  reared  their  family 
altars  in  love  and  peace.  To  the  brothel's  Maurice  and  Roger 
Moore,  especially,  I  would  here  render  an  humble  tribute  of 
respect  and  veneration.  Their  characters  are  unknown  to 
history.  Eoger  is  not  named  in  the  annals  of  llSTorth-Carolina ; 
and  Col.  Maurice  Moore  is  mentioned,  and  only  mentioned, 
as  the  father  of  his  illustrious  sons,  Judge  Maurice,  and  Gen- 
eral James  Moore.  If  history  immortalizes  those  who,  wuth 
the  cannon  and  the  bayonet,  through  blood  and  carnage,  es- 
tablish a  dynasty  or  found  a  state,  surely  something  more 
than  mere  oblivion  is  due  to  those,  who,  forsaking  all  that  is 
attractive  to  the  civilized  mind,  lead  a  colony,  and  plant  it 
successfully  in  harmony  and  peace,  amid  the  dangers  of  the 

*  Williamson,  2—10 ;  Martin,  1—285.    +  Martin,  1—284.    X  Carr.  Co!!,,  2—421. 


16 

■«'ildernes9,  and  nnder  the  war-whoop  of  the  savage.  Every 
schoolboy  has  read  of  Cadmus,  who,  thousands  of  years  ago, 
brought  letters  into  Greece,  Few,  very  few,  even  of  the  in- 
telligent men  of  the  Cape  Fear,  have  ever  heard  the  names 
of  those,  to  whom,  but  little  more  than  a  century  since,  they 
owe  the  civilization  of  their  country.  These  brothers  were 
not  cast  in  the  common  mould  of  men.  They  were  of  "  the 
breed  of  noble  bloods."  Of  kingly  descent,""  and  proud  of 
their  name  which  brave  deeds  had  made  illustrious,  they 
dwelt  upon  their  magnificent  estates  of  Rocky  Point,  and 
Orton,  with  much  of  the  dignity,  and  something  of  the  state 
of  the  ancient  feudal  barons,  surrounded  by  their  sons  and 
kinsmen,  who  looked  up  to  them  for  counsel,  and  were  de- 
voted to  tlieir  will.  Proud  and  stately,  somewhat  haughty 
and  overbearing  perhaps,  but  honorable,  brave,  highminded 
and  generous ;  they  lived  for  many  years  the  fathers  of  the 
Cape  Fear,  dispensing  a  noble  hospitality  to  all  the  worthy, 
and  a  terror  to  the  mean  and  lawless.  Tliis  picture  may  seem 
overdrawn,  perhaps  ;  but  it  is  truly  painted  from  family  tra- 
ditions. And  Roger  Moore  is,  to  this  day,  always  called  on 
the  Cape  Fear  by  his  soubriquet  of  "  Old  King  Roger." 
They  possessed  the  entire  respect  and  confidence  of  all ;  and 
the  early  books  of  the  Register's  OflSce  of  New  Hanover 
county  are  full  of  letters  of  attorney  from  all  sorts  of  men, 
giving  them  an  absolute  discretion  in  managing  the  varied 
affairs  of  their  many  constituents. 

Such  were  the  pioneers  of  the  Cape  Fear.  And  it  is  need- 
less to  say  how  great  is  the  reproach  of  the  people  who  have 
left  their  names  to  die.  In  a  grove  of  noble  oaks  upon  the 
slope  of  the  hill  at  Orton,  facing  the  river,  and  nearly  opJJo- 
site  the  Sugar  Loaf  Hill  which  is  pointed  out  by  the  old  as 
the  scene  of  one  of  his  fearless  exploits  with  the  Indians, 
"King  Roger"  sleeps,  surrounded  by  his  family,  without  a 
stone  to  record  his  virtues,  or  even  to  tell  his  name ! 

The  earliest  grant  of  land  upon  the  Cape  Fear  was  one,  (of 
which  I  have  seen  a  recital  in  a  later  deed)  from  the  Proprie- 
tors to  Landgrave  Thomas  Smith,  in  1691,  for  forty-eight 
thousand  acres.  If  this  grant  was  ever  surveyed  and  located, 
(of  which  there  is  now  no  evidence,)  it  is  certain  that  it  was 

*  Leland,  Hist.  Ireland  says  their  ancestor,  Roger,  was  descended  from  the  ancieat 
Kings  of  Leix. 


17 

never  occupied  prior  to  tlie  year  1723.  The  next  oldest,  as 
far  as  I  have  been  able  to  ascertain,  was  one  from  the  Pro- 
prietors to  Col.  Maurice  Moore,  the  3d  of  June,  1725,  for  fif- 
teen Imndred  acres,  on  the  west  bank  of  the  river.  Of  this 
tract,  in  the  same  year,*  he  laid  oif  three  hundred  and  sixty 
acres  upon  the  river,  sixteen  miles*  below  Wilmington,  into  • 
haU-acre  lots  for  a  town,  which  he  named  in  honor  of  the 
reigning  family.  This  was  the  old  borough  of  Brunswick, 
subsequently  so  distinguished  under  the  administrations  of 
Tryon  and  Martin  for  its  enlightened  patriotism,  and  its  bold 
and  active  zeal  in  the  cause  of  liberty — the  home  of  Howe, 
of  Hill,  of  Harnett  and  of  Dry — the  cynosure  of  the  refine- 
ment of  the  day — where  generous  wealth  built  stately  man- 
sions, and  delighted  in  elegant  hospitality — where  hightoned 
honor  and  chivalrous  courage,  and  gentle  courtesy  and  social 
harmony,  wit,  education  and  refinement,  met  to  make  them- 
selves a  home.  The  voyager  upon  the  Cape  Fear  now  looks 
in  vain  for  the  traces  of  its  ancient  state.  Ichabod  was  writ- 
ten on  its  walls,  and  desolation  reigns.  Its  lordly  mansions 
are  in  the  dust,  and  its  glad  voices  gone.  The  bat  and  the 
owl  are  its  only  dwellers ;  and  nothing  remains  to  mark  its 
site  but  the  solid  walls  of  the  old  Anglican  church,  and  the 
silent  monuments  of  the  dead. 

Begun  under  auspices  such  as  I  have  mentioned,  the  suc- 
cess of  this  colony  "  followed  as  the  night  the  day ;"  and  men 
of  note  from  all  quarters  soon  came  to  swell  its  numbers. 
Here,  from  the  Chowan,  came  the  distinguished  lawyer,  Sam- 
uel Swann  and  his  brother  John,  Edward  Moseley,  President 
of  the  Council,  and  his  kinsman  young  Alexander  Lillington, 
John  Baptista  Ashe,  and  Cornelius  Harnett  the  elder.  Here, 
from  Boston,  came  the  elegant  gentlemen,  Wm.  Hill,  Wm, 
Hooper,  and  Gen.  Thomas  Clark — from  South  Carolina, 
Chief  Justice  Allen,  and  William  Dry  the  elder — from  Ire- 
land, Archibald  Maclaine— from  Liverpool,  the  Eagles— from 
London,  the  Quinces — and  here  came  James  Hasell  and 
Kobert  Halton,  and  Armand  DeRosset,  and  Benj.  Heron, 
Capt.  Edward  Hyrne,  CqI.  James  Innes,  Col.  Tlios.  Merrick, 
the  Claytons,  the  Rutherfords,  the  Eices,  the  Eowans,  the 
Watters,  the  Strudwicks,  and  a  host  of  others.  Here,  in 
1736,  came  the  Eev.  Eichard  Marsden,  bringing  with  him 

*  Deed  from  M.  Moore  to  C.  Harnett,  Reg.  Of.  N.  H.  Co.  Book  A.  71. 

2 


y 


the  sacred  offices  of  religion.     Here,  in  1Y24,  tlie  Governor, 
George  Burrington,  came  on  a  visit  to  the  young  colony  ;* 
and  soon  afterwards  lie  pnrcliased  and  settled  a  plantation 
five  miles  below  Brunswick,  on  a  creek  wliicli  is  called  after 
him  to  this  day  Governor's  Creek,  and  resided  there  for  many 
years.     As  everything  pertaining  to  our  early  histoiy  is  im- 
portant, it  may  not  be  amiss  to  correct  an  error  into  which 
history  has  fallen  in  relation   to   Gov.  Burrington's  death. 
Williamson  saysf  that  soon  after  his  abdication  of  the  govern- 
ment, in  1734,  he  was  rioting  one  night,  and  was  found  mur- 
dered the  next  morning  in  the  Bird  Cage  Walk,  in  St.  James' 
Park,  in  London.     The  manner  of  his  death  may  be  true ; 
but  there  is  certainly  an  error  of  at  least  twenty  years  in  the 
date.     I  have  in  my  possession  an  original  letter  of  his,  dated 
in  1739.     And  in  1754  he  mortgaged  to  Samuel  Strudwick, 
of  London,  his  Stag  Park  plantation  upon  the  river — the 
same  which  had  been  so  named  by  the  explorers  from  Barba- 
does,  under  Capt.  Hilton,  ninety  years  before.     The  deed  is 
recorded  in  JSTew  Hanover  county.     I  cannot  but  think,  too, 
that  history  has  done  him  injustice  in  the  delineation  of  his 
character.     Wheeler  attacks  him  with  the  sweeping  denun- 
ciation that  "  his  character  is  unadorned  by  a  single  virtue.;}; 
Certainly  the  crimes  with  which  he  is  charged  are  not  of  a 
lieinous   magnitude ;    nor   are    the   proofs   veiy   conclusive. 
They  consist  mainly  of  certain  indictments  against  him  in  the 
General  Court  at  Edenton,  in  two  of  ■vV'hich  the  gravamen  was 
his  having  said  that  Sir  Richard  Everard  was  "  a  noodle  and 
an  ape,"  "  a  calf-head,"  "  and  no  more  fit  to  be  Governor  than 
Sancho  Panza ;"  (an  opinion  by  the  by,  fully  entertained  by 
better  men  than  George  Burrington ;)  in  another,  for  an  as- 
sault, he  was  a  co-defendant  with  Cornelius  Harnett  the  eider, 
and  some  others  of  the  first  gentlemen  in  the  colony;  and 
there  were  two  others  against  him  for  rather  riotous  assaults. 
In  none  of  these  was  he  proved  guilty.     It  is  true  he  did  not 
appear  to  stand  his  trial.     But  that  may  very  well  have  been, 
because  his   enemy.    Sir  Richard  Everard,  was  Governor, 
and  he  did  not  wish  to  be  tried  by  his  creatures  and  friends. 
Moreover,  he  lived  in  a  lawless  age,  and  in  a  country,  where, 
according  to  Col.  Byrd,  of  Westover,  "  every  one  did  what 
was  best  in  his  own  eyes ;  and  none  paid  any  tribute  to  God 

*  Martin,  1—296.    t  2—35.    %  Address  at  Davidson  College,  Un.  Mag.,  Dec.  1852. 


or  to  Ca?sar.""  And  it  is  not  fair  to  judge  him  by  tlie  purer 
morality  of  later  times.  That  he  was  a  wise,  or  a  prudent 
Governor,  is  not  pretended  by  any.  But,  "he  was  not 
chargeable  with  fraud  or  corruption;  for  he  despised  rogues, 
whether  they  were  small  or  great.  ISTor  could  he  be  sus- 
pected of  cunning;  a  vice  which  is  more  dangerous,  because 
it  personates  a  virtue."t  I  believe  that  he  was  open,  frank, 
bold,  spirited,  and  generous ;  but  he  was  also  weak,  impru- 
dent, dissipated,  and  reckless.  A  social  and  agreeable  com- 
panion, and  a  staunch  friend ;  but  careless  of  his  personal 
dignity,  and  regardless  of  law  or  authority.  His  virtues  were 
his  own  ;  and  his  vices  were  but  too  common  in  the  times  in 
which  he  lived. 

Among  the  emigrants  to  the  Cape  Fear  there  was  one  about 
whose  history  hangs  a  melancholy  shade  of  romance.  Some 
time  about  the  year  1760  there  came  thither  from  Virginia  a 
gentleman  of  L-ish  fiimily  named  Thomas  McGuire.  Young, 
gay,  and  frank,  of  finished  education  and  winning  address,  he 
was  warmly  welcomed  and  entertained  by  the  hospitable 
gentlemen  of  Brunswick ;  and,  among  others,  by  Col.  Wm. 
Dry,  whose  mansion  was  afterwards  celebrated  in  the  Journal 
of  Josiah  Quincy  as  "  the  house  of  universal  hospitality.":}; 
Rebecca,  the  daughter  of  Col.  Dry,  and  great  niece  of  Cob 
Maurice  Moore,  a  gentle  and  lovely  young  girl,  was  won  by 
the  attractions  of  the  handsome  stranger,  and  bestowed  on 
him  her  hand.  She  lived  but  a  little  while,  and  died  in  1766 
at  the  early  age  of  seventeen,  universally  loved  and  regretted. 
Her  tombstone  stands  in  the  churchj^ard  of  Old  Brunswick, 
bearing  a  finished  tribute  to  her  memory  from  the  hand  of  her 
husband,  which  concludes  with  this  genuine  Irish  sentiment : 

"  Quisquis  hoe  marmor  sustulerit, 
Ultimus  suoriim  moriatur." 

Tradition  says  that  this  Thomas  McGuire  was  the  lineal  de- 
scendant of  the  Lord  McGuire,  who  was  the  friend  and  asso- 
ciate of  his  wife's  ancestor  in  the  Irish  Rebellion  of  1641,  and 
who  was  con^'emned  and  executed  after  the  attack  upon  the 
Castle  of  Dubhn.  I  know  not  how  this  may  be.  But  it  is 
certainly  true,  and  strange  as  true,  that  the  names  of  Roger 
Moore  and  McGuire,  which  nowhere  appear  together  but  in 
the  histoiy  of  that  rebellion,  and  which  disappear  together 

*  Journal  ef  the  Boundary  CommissioT:,  Westoyer,  M.SS.  +  Williamson,  2 — li. 
1 1773. 


20- 

wlieii  that  wa&  quelled,  should  be  found,  more  than  a  centuiy 
later,  united  by  friendsliip  and  marriage,  on  the  banks  of  the 
Cape  Fear.  And  sadly  McGuire's  curse  returned  upon  hinu 
For  the  marble  still  stands  above  the  dust  of  his  wife  ;.  and  he 
himself  "  died  the  last  of  his  race,"  and  left  no  memorial  of 
his  life  or  death. 

About  the  year  1730  'or  1731,  some  haMtatious  began  to  be 
built  on  the  sandhill  bluff  opposite  the  junction  of  the  north- 
east and  northwest  branches  of  the  Cape  Fear  river.  Soon 
they  increased  to  a  little  village  without  order  or  regularity, 
which  received  the  name  of  Xew  Liverpool.  In  1733  it  was 
regularly  surveyed  into  lots  for  a  town ;  but  the  inhabitants 
had  still  no  title  to  the  land  but  by  occupation.  In  1735  a 
grant  issued  to  John  Watson  for  640  acres,  including  the  vil- 
lage, and  styling  it  Newton  ;  and  for  several  years  afterwards 
it  was  indiscriminately  called  ISTewton  and  !New  Liverpool. 
In  1739  its  name  was  changed  by  legislative  enactment  to 
"Wilmington,  in  honor  of  Spence  Compton^ Baron  of  Wilming- 
ton, the  friend  and  patron  of  Gov.  Gabriel  Johnston,  Almost 
side  by  side,  Wilmington  and  Brunswick  advanced  with  near- 
ly equal  steps  until  the  Bevolution,  when  they  were  of  about 
the  same  size -and  importance.  After  the  Revolution,  when 
peace  and  good  order  returned  and  commerce  revived, 
Brunswick  began  to  decay.  The  causes  w^hich  produced  its 
decadence  I  have  iiot  time  now  to  examine,..  Its  principal  in- 
habitants one  by  one  removed  to  the  sister  town,  which  flou- 
rished over  its  decay,  and  gradually  absorbed  it  altogether  ;, 
until  the  one  has  become  a  flourishing  city,  and  the  .other  a 
desolate  wilderness. 

In  all  the  disputes  with  the  royal  government  the  people  of 
the  Cape  Fear  were  from  the  beginning  among  the  foremost 
friends  of  freedom.  A  distinguished  statesman  has  said  that 
the  war  of  the  Revolution  "was  fought  uppn  a  preamble." 
With  them  it  w^as  as  nearly  as  could  be  a  war  upon  an  ab- 
stract principle.  They  were  not  a  commerical  people.  Tliey 
were  principally  planters,  many  of  them  wealthy,  and  all  pos- 
sessing a  comfortable  independenee,  residing  upon  their  es- 
tates, an^  living  almost  entii-ely  within  themselves.  Secluded 
from  the  world,  aaid  delighting  chiefly  in  rural  sports  and  so- 
cial enjoyment  at  home,  what  need  they  care  for  a  trifling 
duty  on  govermn.ent  paper  I    Wliy  should  they  hazard  their 


%  21 

fortunes,  tlieir  families,  and  their  lives,  for  two-pence  a  ponnd 
on  tea?  But  it  was  not  only  a  war  npon  an  abstract  princi- 
ple, but  a  w^ar  against  substantial  benetits.  They  had  re- 
ceived extraordinary  favors  from  the  government.  A  fort 
had  been  built  at  the  mouth  of  the  river  for  their  protection 
from  enemies  and  pirates.  Their  religion  had  been  cared 
for  by  legislative  aid  in  the  erection  of  their  churches  of  St. 
Philip  and  St.  James.  In  1745  an  act  was  passed  for  the  de- 
clared purpose  of  building  up  the  town  of  Brunswick.*  And 
they  had  long  enjoyed  a  substantial  bounty  upon  their  pecu- 
liar production  of  naval  stores,  in  vhich  their  capital  was  prin- 
•cipally  invested,  and  from  w^hich  their  chief  revenue  was  de- 
rived. Moreover,  with  most  of  them  the  sentiment  of  loyalty 
was  hereditary.  They  had  never  yielded  a  willing  obedience 
to  the  government  of  the  Proprietors ;  but  in  common  with 
all  their  compatriots,  they  had  struggled  long  and  arduously 
against  it,  until  they  succeeded  in  bringing  themselves  under 
the  autliority  and  protection  of  the  crow^n.  They  revered 
their  king ;  and  to  rebel  against  him  was  to  them  like  raising 
one's  hand  against  the  gray  hairs  of  a  father.  But  all  this 
was  nothing  when  weighed  against  a  single  principle.  Gov. 
Dobbs  lived  there  for  many  years  in  the  constant  intercourse 
of  Iriendship  and  hospitality  with  their  leading  men.  But  yet, 
in  all  his  measures  for  increasing  the  power  and  patronage  of 
the  government,  he  could  never  win  from  among  their  rep- 
resentatives a  single  advocate.  Gov.  Tiyon  by  turns  cajoled 
and  threatened,  courted  and  denounced  them.  But  they  des- 
pised his  blandishments,  as  they  defied  his  power. 

When  the  Stamp  Act  was  introduced  into  Parliament,  they 
watched  "its  progress  as  men  watch  the  storm  which  they 
Iknow  is  to  burst  in  fury  on  their  heads ;  but  they  watched 
without  fear  and  with  manly  hearts.  When  the  ■  cews  of 
its  passage  came  across  the  water,  their  Chevalier  Bayard, 
John  Ashe,  was  Speaker  of  the  House.  He  boldly  proclaimed 
to  the  Governor  that  he  w^ould  resist  it  unto  death ;  and  that 
his  people  would  stand  by  him  in  the  sacred  cause.f  Did  he 
miscalculate  the  spirit  of  his  people  ?  Had  he  read  them 
aright  ?     Let  us  see. 

In  the  first  of  the  year  1766  the  sloop  of  war  Diligence  ar- 
rived in  the  Cape  Fear,  bringing  the  stamps.     The  procla- 

*  Davis'  Kevisal,  OS.    t  Jones'  Def.  No.  Ca.  21. 


22  ^ 

mation  of  Gov.  Tryon  announcing  lier  arrival,  and  directing 
all  persons  authorized  to  distribute  tliem  to  apply  to  lier  com- 
mander, is  dated  tlie  Ctli  of  January  in  that  year.  Now  look 
•what  shall  happen.  She  floats  as  gaily  up  the  river  as  though 
she  came  upon  an  errand  of  grace,  with  sails  all  set,  and  the 
cross  of  St.  George  flaunting  apeak,  and  her  cannon  frown  up- 
on the  rebellious  little  town  of  Brunswick,  as  she  yaws  to  her 
anchor.  People  of  the  Cape  Fear,  the  issue  is  before  you  I 
The  paw  of  the  lion  is  on  your  heads — the  terrible  lion  of 
England!  Will  ye  crouch  submissively? — or  redeem  the 
honor  that  was  pledged  for  you  ?  Ye  have  spoken  brave 
words  about  the  rights  of  the  people.     Have  ye  acts  as  brave  ? 

Ah,  gentlemen,  there  were  men  in  I^orth-Carolina  in  those 
days ! 

Scarcely  had  the  Stamp  ship  crossed  the  bar,  when  Colonel 
Waddell  was  watching  her  from  the  land.  He  sent  a  mes- 
sage to  Wilmington  to  his  friend  Colonel  Ashe.  And  as  she 
rounded  to  her  anchor  opposite  the  custom  house  at  Bruns- 
wick, they  stood  upon  the  shore  with  two  companies  of  friends 
and  gallant  yeomen  at  their  backs.  Beware  John  Ashe  I 
Hugh  Waddell,  take  heed  !  Consider  well,  brave  gentlemen, 
the  perilous  issue  that  you  dare.  Kemember  that  armed  re- 
sistance to  the  King's  authority  is  Treason.  In  his  palace,  at 
Wilmington,  but  a  few  miles  off,  the  "Wolf  of  Carolina"*  is 
already  chafing  against  you.  And  know  you  not  that  yonder, 
across  the  water,  England  still  keeps  the  Tower,  the  Traitor's 
Gate,  the  Scaffold  and  the  Axe  ?    Full  well  they  know.     But 

"  They  have  set  their  lives  upon  the  cast. 
And  now  must  stand  the  hazard  of  the  die." 

By  threats  of  violence  they  mtimidate  the  commander  of 
the  sloop,  and  he  promises  not  to  land  the  stamps.  They  seize 
the  vessel's  boat,  and  hoisting  a  mast  and  flag,  mount  it  upon 
a  cart,  and  march  in  triumph  to  Wilmington.  Upon  their 
arrival  the  town  is  illuminated.  'Next  day,  with  Colonel  Ashe 
at  their  head,  the  people  go  in  crowds  to  the  Governor's 
house,  and  demand  of  him  James  Houston,  the  Stamp-master. 
Upon  his  refusal  to  deliver  him  up,  forthwith  they  set  about 
to  burn  the  house  above  his  head.  Terrified,  the  Governor 
at  length  complies,  and  Houston  is  conducted  to  the' market 
house,  where,  in  the  presence  of  the  assembled  people  he  is 

*  Name  given  to  Tryon  by  the  Indians. 


23 

mfide  to  take  a  solemn  oath  never  to  execute  the  duties  of 
liis  otfice.  Three  ghad  liurrahs  ring-  tlirough  the  old  market 
house,  and  the  Stamp  Act  falls  still-horn  in  Xorth-Carolina.* 
And  this  was  more  than  ten  years  I)efore  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  and  more  than  nine  hefore  the  battle  of  Lex- 
ington, and  nearly  eight  years  hefore  the  Boston  Tea  Party. 
The  destruction  of  the  tea  was  done  in  the  night,  by  men  in 
disguise.  And  history  blazons  it,  and  ISTew  England  boasts 
of  it,  and  the  fame  of  it  is  ^vorld-^vide.  But  this  other  act^ 
more  gallant  and  daring,  done  in  open  day,  by  well  known 
men,  with  arms  in  their  hands,  and  under  the  king's  flag — 
who  remembers,  or  who  tells  of  it  ?  "When  will  history  do 
justice  to  JSTorth-Carolina  ?  I^ever,  until  some  faithful  and 
loyiug  son  of  her  own  shall  gird  his  loins  to  the  task,  with 
unwearied  industry  and  unflinching  devotion  to  the  honor  of 
his  dear  old  mother. 

Alarmed  by  the  daring  opposition  of  the  people.  Governor 
Try  on,  who  had  bullied  before,  determined  to  change  his  policy. 

"High  reaching  Buckingham  grows  circumspect." 

He  began  to  court  the  people,  and  to  flatter  them  with  shows 
and  sports.  In  February  of  the  same  year  there  was  a  mus- 
ter of  the  militia  of  the  county  in  Wilmington.  The  Gov- 
ernor, in  his  amiable  condescension,  caused  a  fine  repast  to 
be  prepared  for  them  at  a  considerable  expense.  But  when 
the  feast  was  ready,  the  people  rushed  to  the  spot,  poured  the 
liquor  into  the  streets,  and  threw  the  viands,  untasted,  into 
the  river. f  He  forgot  that  he  was  in  the  home  of  John  Ashe, 
and  that  the  people  whom  he  led  could  neither  be  bought  nor 
intimidated. 

The  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  which  happened  soon  after, 
though  joyfully  received,  was  not  viewed  as  an  act  of  grace, 
but  as  one  of  tardy  repentance  for  an  unjustifiable  wrong. 
It  was  far  from  allaying  the  jealousies  of  the  people ;  but  it 
produced  a  spirit  of  greater  forbearance  towards  the  Gover- 
nor. And  the  rest  of  his  administration  was  principally  con- 
cerned with  the  erection  of  his  splendid  palace  at  ISTew  Bern, 
and, his  difficulties  with  the  Regulators;  both  of  which  are 
foreign  to  my  subject. 

Upon  the  accession  of  Gov,  Martin,  he  had  not  the  pru- 
dence to  avoid  the  errors  and  follies  of  his  predecessor.     He 

*  Jones,  24—25;  Wheeler,  1—51.    t  Jones,  29;   Wheeler,  1—52. 


24: 

attempted,  by  frequent  prorogations  of  tlie  Assembly,  and  by 
leaving  the  people  without  the  protection  of  the  courts  of 
justice,  to  weary  out  their  representatives,  and  reduce  them 
to  submission.  But  they  grew  bolder  and  bolder.  They  re- 
fused to  pass  his  relief  bills.  They  bearded  him  upon  the 
Southern  Boundary  Question,  Time  and  again  they  bullied* 
him  upon  the  Attachment  Law.  Until  at  length,  on  the  24th 
of  April,  1775,  when  the  daring  "Whigs  of  New  Bern  seized 
his  artillery  in  his  very  palace  yard,  he  fled  to  the  Cape  Fear. 
But  he  found  no  comfort  there.  If  Mecklenburg  was  the 
"  Hornet's  ISTest,"  of,the  Revolution,  truly  the  Cape  Fear  was 
a  nest  of  Yellow  Jackets  to  Tryon  and  Martin.  He  took  re- 
fuge in  Fort  Johnston,  at  the  mouth  of  the  river.  On  the 
15th  June  he  issued  thence  a  proclamation,  in  which  he  de- 
nounced the  Committees  of  the  Province,  and  attempted  to  de- 
stroy their  influence  with  the  people.  On  the  20th  of  the  same 
month  the  Committee  of  t^e  "Wilmington  District  fired  back 
a  bulletin,  in  which  they  declared  him  "  an  enemy  to  the  col- 
ony," more  than  hinted  that  he  had  endeavored  "  to  gloss 
over  the  most  palpable  violations  of  truth  with  plausibility," 
and  denounced  his  proclamation  as  "a  poor  artifice  to  seduce, 
mislead  and  betray  the  ignorant  and  incautious  into  ruin  and 
destruction,  by  inducing  them  to  forfeit  the  inestimable  bles- 
sings of  freedom."*  "  A  certain  John  Ashe,"  too,  as  he  af- 
terwards called  him  in  his  proclamation  of  8th  August,  was 
then  at  home  ;  and  he  had  not  forgotten  his  old  style  of  hos- 
pitality to  the  royal  governors.  Throwing  ujd  the  commission 
which  he  held  from  the  government,  and  accepting  a  colo- 
nelcy, by  election  from  the  people,  he  collected  a  body  of  five 
hundred  troops,  marched  to  Fort  Johnston,  and  on  the  18th 
July  drove  the  Governor  on  board  the  ship  of  war,  Cruiser, 
and  burnt  and  destroyed  the  fort  under  her  very  guns. 

Thus  nobly,  upon  the  Cape  Fear,  closed  the  first  act  of  the 
drama.  And  when  the  curtain  rose  again,  George,  by  the 
grace  of  God,  king,  was  king  no  longer;  but  the  Constitu- 
tion reigned,  and  the  free  people  of  North-Carolina  governed 
themselves. 

I  said  there  were  men  in  North-Carolitia  in  those  days.  1 
would  that  I  had  the  time  and  the  ability  to  portray,  in  fitting 
colors,  their  claims  upon  the  gratitude  and  remembrance  of 

*  Proceedings  of  the  Wil.  Committee,  32—33—34. 


25 

their  countrymen.  But  a  brief  allusion  to  some  of  the  most 
distinguished  of  those'who  adorned  the  Cape  Fear,  is  all  that 
I  dare  now  attempt. 

And  I  mention  tirst  the  noble  family  of  Ashe,  which,  gave 
every  grown  male  of  the  name,  nine  fighting  men,  to  the  ser- 
vice of  their  country,  in  the  darkest  hour  of  her  cause.  And 
yet,  so  modestly  have  their  claims  upon  the  State  been 
pressed,  or  rather,  so  little  have  they  been  asserted  at  all, 
that  the  commonly  received  account  of  the  origin  of  the 
family  is  entirely  erroneous.  It  is  generally  said,*  that  the 
founder  of  the  family  in  North-Carolina  emigrated  from  Eng- 
land in  1727,  under  the  patronage  of  the  Earl  of  Craven. 
Tills  is  incorrect.  The  name  of  Ashe  was  distinguished  in 
Carolina  at  least  as  early  as  the  year  1700. f  Under  the  ad- 
ministration of  Sir  ISTathaniel  Johnson,  in  South-Carolina,  an 
effort  was  made  to  make  the  religion  of  the  Chm-ch  of  Eng- 
land the  established  religion  of  the  colony ;  and  an  act  of 
conformity  was  passed,  the  effect  of  which  was,  to  exclude 
dissenters  altogether  from  the  Assembly.  The  inhabitants  of 
Colleton  county,  who  were  mostly  dissenters,  were  justl}^  in- 
censed at  this  injustice ;  and  they  sent  John  Ashe,  who  was 
one  of  their  leading  men,  to  England,  as  their  agent,  to  lay 
their  case  before  the  Proprietors,  and  seek  redress.:];  This 
was  in  1703.  John  Ashe  died  while  in  England  on  this  mis- 
sion ;  and  soon  afterwards  his  family  emigrated  to  the  Albe- 
marle settlement  in  North-Carolina.  From  thence  his  son,§ 
John  Baptista  Ashe,  about  the  year  1727,  removed  to  the  Cape 
Fear.  He  had  two  sons,  the  John  Ashe  of  whom  I  have  made 
frequent  mention — "  the  most  chivalrous  hero  of  our  Revolu- 
tion"!—  and  who  is  usually  distinguished  by  his  subsequent 
title  as  General  Ashe,  and  Samuel,  afterwards  Governor  of 
tlie  State.  "The  Ashe  family,"  says  Jones,!  "contributed 
more  than  any  other  to  the  success  of  the  revolution  in  the 
State.  Gen.  Ashe's  son,  Capt.  Sam'l  Ashe,  served  two  cam- 
paigns in  the  Northern  States,  with  the  rank  of  captain  in 
the  light-horse,  and  although  he  resigned  his  commission,  yet 
he  continued  to  serve  in  the  militia  expeditions  of  the  State. 
So  that  there  were  five  officers  of  that  family  all  actively  en- 
gaged in  the  war :  Gen.  John  Ashe,  and  his  son  Capt.  Sam'l 

*  Wheeler,  2—279 ;  Caruthers,  126.  t  Oldmixon  in  Carr,  Coll.,  2—421.  X  Carr.  Coll., 
1—148 ;  Id.,  2—431 ;  Martin,  1—219.  §  Martin,  1—219.  1  Jones'  Def.  of  No.  Ca.,  509. 
8  Def.  of  No.  Ca.,  211. 


26 

Ashe  ;  Gov,  Samuel  Ashe,  and  liis  sons,  Colonels  John  Bap- 
tista,  and  Samuel  Ashe."  True  so  far.  And  he  might  have 
added,  that  Gen.  Ashe's  son  John — "  Mad  Jack  Ashe,"  as  he 
was  called — served  nearly  throughout  the  Avar  with  tlie  rank 
of  captain ;  and  that  the  hoys,  William,  Acourt,  and  Cincin- 
natus  Ashe,  though  too  young  to  hold  command,  were  old 
enough  to  follow  the  example  of  their  sires,  and  march 
against  the  enemies  of  their  country. 

It  was  not  my  good  fortune  to  know  but  one  of  these  disr 
tinguished  men.  In  my  early  youth  I  remember  an  old  man, 
bowed  by  age  and  infirmities,  but  of  a  noble  front,  and  most 
commanding  presence.  Old  and  young  gathered  around  him 
in  love  and  veneration,  to  listen  to  his  stories  of  the  olden 
time.  And  as  he  spake  of  his  country's  trials,  and  of  the 
deeds  and  sufferings  of  her  sons,  his  eye  flashed  with  the  ar- 
dor of  youth,  and  his  voice  rang  like  the  battle  charge  of  a 
bugle.  He  was  the  soul  of  truth  and  honor,  with  the  ripe 
wisdom  of  a  man,  and  the  guileless  simplicity  of  a  child. 
He  won  strangers  to  him  with  a  look,  and  those  who  knew 
him  loved  him  with  a  most  filial  affection.  None  ever  lived 
more  honored  and  revered ;  none  ever  died  leaving  a  purer 
or  more  cherished  memory.  This  was  Colonel  Samuel  Ashe, 
"  the  last  of  all  the  Romans." 

I  must  speak  also,  briefly,  of  the  family  of  the  Moores — 
Judge  Maurice  Moore,  and  his  brother  Gen,  James  Moore, 
sons  of  Col.  Maurice  Moore,  the  pioneer  of  the  Cape  Fear ; 
and  Judge  Alfred  Moore,  son  of  Judge  Maurice  Moore. 
They,  too,  had  inherited  the  rebellious  blood  of  their  race, 
and  were  genuine  scions  of  the  old  stock.  It  was  not  in  their 
name  or  blood  to  be  other  than  patriots,  or  to  shrink  from  any 
sacrifice  at  the  call  of  their  country.  Judge  Maurice  Moore 
was  the  elder  brother,  and  had  been  bred  to  the  profession  of 
the  law.  He,  with  Martin  Howard  and  Richard  Henderson, 
composed  the  judiciary  of  the  State  when  the  Revolution 
silenced  the  laws.  He  sympathized  with  the  Regulators, 
though  called  by  his  office  to  sit  in  judgment  upon  them. 
And  when,  in  the  great  riot  at  Hillsboro'  in  1770,  Howard 
was  driven  from  the  bench,  and  Edmund  Fanning  severely 
chastised,  the  character  of  Judge  Moore  was  respected  by 
the  rioters.  He  was  a  member  of  the  popular  house  in  1771, 
and  introduced  the  bill  extending  a  general  pardon  to  all  who 


27 

liad  been  concerned  in  the  Eegulation.  lie  was  an  active 
and  influential  member  of  the  Convention  of  177G,  Avliich 
formed  the  constitution  of  the  State.  In  1766  he  had  pub- 
lished an  able  argument  against  the  constitutionality  of  the 
Stamp  Act^.tlie  motto  on  the  title  page  of  which  was  the  true 
index  to  his  own  character. 

"  Nou  sibi,  sed  patriae." 

He  was  also  the  author  of  the  celebrated  letter  to  Gov.  Tryon, 
signed  "  Atticus."  "  A  learned  jurist,  an  astute  advocate,  a 
keen-sighted  statesman,  Judge  Moore  also  possessed  the  high- 
est moral  qualities.  Among  these  was  a  devotion  to  the  cause 
of  rational  liberty.  Amid  the  conflagration  and  tumult  which 
precede  civil  war,  he  calculated  the  impending  perils,  and 
the  distant  and  precarious  blessings  which  lay  hid  in  the  clouds 
that  overhung  his  country.  He  meditated  on  the  approach- 
ing storm,  and  determined  to  stake  his  life,  his  fortune,  and 
the  destinies  of  his  family,  on  the  side  of  civil  liberty  in  the 
dubious  issue."^'  He  did  not  live  to  witness  the  determina- 
tion of  the  issue  which  he  so  nobly  dared. 

His  brother  James  was  bred  a  soldier  from  his  youth ;  and 
from  the  first  espoused  the  cause  of  his  country.  He  was 
considered  the  first  military  genius  of  the  province, f  and  there 
can  be  no  better  testimonial  of  his  merit,  and  of  the  high  es- 
teem in  which  he  was  held  by  his  countrymen,  than  the  fact 
that  when  the  Provincial  Congress  of  17Y5  undertook  the 
military  organization  of  the  State,  he  was  elected  colonel  of 
the  first  regiment,  although  his  competitor  was  his  brother-in- 
law,  the  brave  John  Ashe.ij:  For  some  months  after  his  ap- 
pointment, he  was  stationed  with  his  regiment  on  the  Cape 
Fear  to  watch  the  ships  of  war  then  in  the  river,  and  keep  a 
check  on  Gov.  Martin.  In  the  early  part  of  1776,  when  the 
"  clans  of  Culloden "  were  gathering  at  Cross  Creek  under 
McDonald  and  McLeod  for  the  purpose  of  eftecting  a  junc- 
tion on  the  Cape  Fear  with  Sir  Henry  Cinton,  and  executing 
thence  a  well  planned  scheme  for  the  subjugation  of  the  State, 
Gen,  Moore  marched  with  his  regiment  to  Cumberland  to 
meet  and  give  them  battle.  They  deemed  it  prudent,  how- 
ever, to  avoid  him.  And.  it  was  while  flying  from  his  hot 
pursuit  that  they  encountered  Caswell  and  Lillington  at 
Moore's  Creek,  and  lost  the  battle  there,  which  saved  the 

*  A.  M.  Hooper,  in  Un.  Mag.,  Dec.  18o.3.  t  Mem.  of  Gen.  Howe  by  A.  M.  Hooper, 
Uu.  Mag.  Dec.  1853.     X  U"-  Mag.  May  1853. 


28 

State.  In  the  summer  of  1776,  upon  tlie  departure  of  Gen. 
Lee,  Gen.  Moore  was  appointed  hy  Congress  Commander-in- 
Chief  of  the  Southern  Department.  And  after  executing  the 
duties  of  his  office  for  several  months,  he  was  called  home  on 
private  business,  where  he  was  soon  after  taken  ilL  The  15th 
of  January,  1777,  was  a  sad  day  for  the  Cape  Fear,  and  for  the 
State.  For  on  that  day,  in  the  same  house  in  Wilmington, 
and  within  an  hour  of  each  other,  died  the  brothers  Maurice 
and  James  Moore,  in  the  j)rime  of  life,  and  in  the  meridian  of 
their  usefulness  and  fame. 

Judge  Alfred  Moore  came  nearer  to  our  own  times,  and  is 
better  known  than  his  distinguished  father  and  uncle.  He, 
too,  was  a  soldier,  and  while  not  yet  of  age  commanded  a 
company  at  Charleston  in  the  memorable  attack  upon  Fort 
Moultrie.  But  his  family  misfortunes  soon  called  him  from 
the  field.  And  although  he  was  afterwards  active  in  the  mil- 
itia service  of  the  State,  and  so  incurred  the  animosity  of  the 
British  commander,  Maj.  Craig,  that  he  sent  a  troop  to  plun- 
der and  destroy  his  dwelling;  yet  his  principal  fame  was  sub- 
sequently acquired  in  the  walks  of  his  profession.  The  heavy 
sufferings  of  liimself  and  his  family  in  the  cause  of  liberty, 
and  tlie  heroic  fortitude  with  which  he  endured  them,  so  won 
upon  the  love  and  gratitude  of  the  State,  that  in  1782  he  was 
elected  its  Attorney  General  while  yet  a  perfect  novice  in  his 
profession.  He  soon  rose  to  eminence,  however,  and  was 
called  to  the  bench  in  1798,  and  in  the  next  year  was  appoint- 
ed an  Associate  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States.  Of  his  merits  as  a  lawyer  we  have  the  highest  evi- 
dence. Chief  Justice  Taylor,  himself  pre-eminent  as  a  jurist, 
on  the  solemn  occasion  of  a  capital  judgment,  declared  of  him 
that  "  he  discharged  for  a  series  of  years  the  arduous  duties 
of  his  office,"  (of  Attorney  General,)  "  in  a  manner  which 
commanded  the  gratitude  and  admiration  of  his  cotempora-' 
ries.  His  profound  knowledge  of  the  criminal  law  was  kept 
in  continual  exercise  by  a  most  varied  and  extensive  practice. 
"No  one  ever  doubted  his  learning  and  penetration  ;  or  that 
while  he  enforced  the  law  with  an  enlightened  vigilance  and 
untiring  zeal,  his  energy  was  seasoned  with  humanity,  leav- 
ing the  innocent  nothing  to  fear,  and  the  guilty  but  little  to 
hope."*     These  things  history  has  preserved  of  him.     But 

*  State  i'S  Jernagan,  3  Mur.  Eep.,  12. 


29 

tradition  alone  spoalcs  of  tlie  charming  traits  in  private  life — 
his  varied  accomplishments  and  brilliant  wit,  his  chivalrous 
honor  and  gentle  courtesy,  his  noble  hospitality  and  most  win- 
ning manners — which  won  him  the  love  and  admiration  of  all, 
and  have  handed  down  his  memory  as  the  finished  model  of 
a  Korth-Carolina  gentleman. 

Of  General  Eobert  Howe,  the  wit,  the  scholar,  and  the  sol-  • 
dier,  it  is  hardly  necessar}^  for  me  to  speak.  His  fame  has  re- 
ceived ample  justice  at  the  hands  of  his  biographer."  He 
must  have  deserved  well  of  his  country ;  for  he  was  feared,  and 
bitterly  hated  by  her  enemies.  It  was  at  him  and  his  friend 
Gen.  Ashe  and  Kichard  Caswell,  that  the  celebrated  procla-  - 
mation  of  Gov.  Martin  of  the  Stli  August,  1775,  was  specially 
aimed.  And  upon  the  arrival  of  Sir  Henry  Clinton  in  the 
Gape  Fear,  he  called  to  mind  the  disgrace  which  Gen.  Howe 
had  inflicted  upon  his  friend  Lord  Dunmore  at  ISTorfolk  ;  and 
he  signalized  at  the  same  time  his  own  ignoble  character,  and 
the  incorruptible  patriotism  of  Gen.  Howe,  by  excepting  him 
from  the  general  pardon  which  he  offered  to  the  people,  and 
by  ravaging,  his  plantation  and  burning  his  dwelling  with 
circumstances  of  v/ anton  barbarity,  ^ 

Alexander  Lillington  is  another  name  which  the  people  of 
Is"orth-Carolina  ought  never  to  forget ;  for  it  is  associated  witl) 
one  of  the  brightest  pages  of  their  history.     His  grandfather, . 
Major  Alexander  Lillington,  emigrated  from  Barbadoes  to  the  • 
County  of  Albemarle,  but  at  what  precise  time  is  not  now 
known.    He  was  early  distinguished,  however,  in  the  liistory  of 
the  colony.     The  oldest  public  record  in  the  State  is  the  com-      ^ 
mission  which  issued  the  3d  of  December,  1769,   to  George     't' 
Durant,  Alex.  Lillington,  Halpli  Fletcher  and  Caleb  Callo- 
way, to  hold  the  Precinct  Courts  of  Berkeley  Precinct.     And 
ujjon  the  departure  of  Gov.  Ludwell,  in  1693,  the  administra-- 
tion  of  aftairs  in  Albemarle  devolved  upon  him  as  Deputy 
Governor.f     His  grandson,  Alexander,  was  left  an  orphan  at 
an  early  age  ;  and  when  Edward  Moseley,  who  had  married 
his  father's  sister,  emigratecl'  to  the  Cape  Fear,  about  the  year 
1727,  young  Lillington  went  with  him.     He  was  early  known 
as  an  active  and  leading  Whig,  and  was  a  prominent  and  in- 
fluential member  of  the  Wilmington  Cou:smittee.     Tliough  he 
served  through  the  war  with  distinction  and  attained  to  the. 

*  A.  M.  Hooper,  Mem.  of  Gen,  Howe,  Un.  Mag.    +  Martin,  1 — 194, 


30 

rank  of  Brigadier  General,  yet  his  fame  principally  rests  upon 
the  Lattle  of  Moore's  Creek.  The  importance  of  this  battle 
has  never  been  properly  appreciated,  and,  indeed,  was  never 
fully  demonstrated  nntil  the  delivery  of  the  interesting  lec- 
ture of  President  Swain  bfciore  the  Historical  Society  of  the 
University,  in  1853.  It  is  not  my  purpose  to  discuss  it  here. 
But;,  without  the  remotest  intention  of  detracting  from  the 
well  earned  fame  of  Gov.  Caswell,  whose  memory  is  very  dear 
to  me  as  a  JSTorth-Carolinian,  I  must  say  that  if  the  traditions 
of  the  people  among  whom  the  battle  was  fought  are  to  be 
beheved.  Gen,  Lillington  has  never  yet  received  the  due 
meed  of  praise  for  his  part  in  that  day's  work.  Those  tra- 
ditions agree  mainly  with  Jones'  account  of  the  battle ;  and 
they  tell  that  he  hate  by  far  the  hardest  brunt  of  the  fight, 
while  he  has  only  Deen  permitted  to  wear  the  smallest  share 
of  the  glory.  Whether  he  commanded  in  chief  or  not,  he 
certainly  had  the  post  of  danger  and  of  honor,  in  the  front  of 
the  battle  ;  and  leading  the  daring  charge  across  the  bridge, 
he  bore  himself  like  a  skilful  and  gallant  officer,  while  fighting- 
like  a  common  soldier.  There  was  honor  enough  for  all,  and 
ail  should  have  shared  it  alike.  It  was  most  unjust  that  his 
name  was  altogether  omitted  in  the  vote  of  thanks  which  was 
afterwards  passed  by  the  Provincial  Congress  at  Halifax.  'It 
has  been  said  that  he  himself  never  complained  of  this."^^  It 
is  true.  He  never  complained,  because  he  was  a  patriot,  and 
not  a  soldier  of  fortune  ;  because  he  fought  for  the  freedom 
of  his  country,  and  not  for  his  personal  renown.  His  family, 
who  worship  his  memory,  have  still  the  silver  crescent  which 
he  wore  upon  his  hat  that  day;  and  it  bears  inscribed  the 
words,  which  were  his  cry  of  battle,  his  prayer  by  night,  and 
his  hope  always — "  Liberty  or  Death." 

To  all  the  men  of  whom  I  have  spoken,  history  has  done 
some  justice,  more  or  less  partial.  But  there  was  yet  another 
who  shone  like  a  star  in  the  early  troubles  of  the  State,  of 
pure  and  exalted  character,  of  unsurpassed  influence  with  his 
countrymen,  and  the  value  of  whose  services  was  only  equal- 
led by  the  extent  of  his  sufferings  and  sacrifices  in  the  cause 
of  liberty.  And  yet,  so  little  is  he  known,  that  I  doubt  not, 
gentlemen,  mau}^  of  you  have  not  even  so  much  as  heard  his 
^  name.     I  speak  of  Cornelius  Harnett,  the  pride  of  the  Cape 

*  A.  M.  Hooper,  Un.  Mag.,  Sept.,  1853. 


31 

Fear — "tlie  Samuel  Adams  of  Xortii-Carolma."*     To  the 
sliame  of  tlie  State,  lus  birtli-place  has  not  heretofore  been 
even  conjectured  ;  and  meagre  as  are  the  accounts  of  his 
early  history,  they  are  full  of  errors.     He  is  always  spoken  of 
as  the  first  and  only  one  of  his  family  in  ISTorth  Carolina,  and 
is  said  to  have  emigrated  from  England  to  the  Cape  Fear ; 
and  one  historianf  makes  him  to  have  been  one  of  Gov.  Bur- 
rington's  Council  in  1730.    This  is  all  -svrong.    In  1730  he  was 
only  seven  years  old.     His  father,  of  the  same   name,  was 
among  tlie  earliest  emigrants  to  the  Cape  Fear,  and  was  for 
many  years  one  of  its  leading  inhabitants ;  and  he  did  not 
go  there  from  England,  but  from  the  county  of  Albemarle. 
I  think  it  nearly  certain  that  he  himself  was  born  in  the  Pre- 
cinct of  Chowan,  and  most  probably  in  the  town  of  Edenton. 
In  the  Register's  Office  of  jSTew  Hanover  county:}:  there  is 
the  record  of  a  bond  from  Col.  Maurice  Moore,  of  New  Han- 
over Precinct,  to  Cornelius  Harnett,  "of  the  same  place," 
dated  30th  June,  1726,  and  conditioned  to  make  him  a  title 
to  two  lots  in  the  new  town  of  Brunswick,  upon  his  building 
good  habitable  houses  thereon  within  eight  months.     This 
fixes  the  period  of  the  father's  emigration  to  the  Cape  Fear. 
But  where  had  been  his  previous  residence  ?     There  is  another 
"  public  record  which  gives  us  the  information.     At  the  Gen- 
eral  Court  sitting  in  Edenton,   the   29th  of  March,   1726, 
"  George  Burrington  was  indicted  for  that  about  the  2nd  of 
December,  1725,  with  Cornelius  Harnett  of  Chowan,  and 
others,  he  assaulted  the  house  of  Sir  Richard  Everard,  &;c."§ 
Islow,  from  his  abetting  Burrington,  even  with  force,  in  his 
quarrel  with  Sir  Richard  Everard,  and  from  his  afterwards 
being  appointed  one  of  his  first  councillors  when  he  became 
a  second  time  Governor  in  1730,  we  may  fairly  infer  that 
Cornelius  Harnett  the  elder  was  the  intimate  friend  and  as- 
sociate of  Gov.  Burrington,  and  a  man  of  distinction  in  the 
colony  as  early  as  1725.    And  to  have  attained  that  position,  he 
must  have  been  resident  there  previously  several  years  at  least. 
If  these  inferences  are  correct,  his  sou,  the  subject  of  this 
sketch,  was  a  native  born  ]!^orth-Carolinian ;  for  we  know  that 
lie  was  born  in  1723.     From  1765  to  1780,  there  was  scarcely 
a  movement  in  the  patriot  cause  in  which  Cornelius  Harnett 
did  not  bear  a  conspicuous  part.     And  a  bare  enumeration  of 

*  Journal  of  Josiah  Quincv.    t  Wheeler,  2—282.    %  Book  A.,  page  71.    §  William- 
snti  2—229. 


32 

tlie  appointments  whicli  lie  tilled,  and  of  tlie  men  witli  wliom 
he  was  associated,  Avould  be  sufficient  to  sliow  tlie  influence 
he  exercised,  and  the  estimation  in  which  he  was  held.  lie 
was  one  of  the  faithful  representatives  of  the  people,  who, 
uiiawed  by  power,  so  fearlesssly  resisted  the  gevernment  on 
the  Attachment  Law.  lie  was  the  first  chairman  of  the 
"Wilmington  Committee,  over  wdiich  he  long  presided,  its  very 
centre  and  soul,  and  the  life-breathing  spirit  of  liberty  among 
the  people.  When  the  Provincial  Congress,  in  1775,  assumed 
the  government,  and  appointed  a  Council  to  administer  the 
affairs  of  the  province  at  their  most  critical  juncture,  he  was 
chosen  President  of  the  Council,  and  virtual  Governor  of  the 
province ;  a  noble  tril3ute  to  his  worth  and  ^  abilities.  Btit 
there  is  yet  a  brighter  jewel  in  his  crown  of  glory.  A  mem- 
ber of  the  convention  w^h'ich  met  at  Halifax  the  4th  of  April, 
1776,  he  was  chairman  of  the  Committee  appointed  to  con- 
sider of  the  nsiirpations  of  the  king  and  parliament,  and  the 
author  of  their  celebrated  report  and  resolution,  "  empower- 
ing the  Deleo-ates  for  this  Colonv  in  the  Continental  Cono-ress 
to  concur  with  the  Delegates  of  the  other  colonies  in  decldring 
Independence."  This  resolution  was  unanimously  adopted 
by  the  Convention  on  the  12th  of  April,  1776 ;  more  than  a 
month  before  the  celebrated  resolution  of  Virginia  on- the 
same  subject.  But  yet,  it  was  done  in  i ISTorth-Carolina,  and 
the  fame  of  it  remains  at  home ;  while  the  other  has  coursed 
about  the  world  upon  the  wings  of  the  wind. 

Thus  faithfully  did  Harnett  serve  the  cause  of  liberty. 
And  the  enemies  of  his  country  did  not  forget  him  for  it.  In 
the  spring  of  1776,  Sir  Henry  Clinton  arrived  in  the  Cape 
Fear ;  and  his  first  public  act  was  to  issue  to  Cornelius  Har- 
nett and  Eobert  Howe  a  patent  of  nobility.  Here  it  is,  writ- 
ten in  British  ink,  and  dated  5th  of  May,  1776  : 

"  I  have  it  in  command  to  proceed  forthwith  against  all 
such  men,  and  bodies  of  men  in  arms,  and  against  all  Con- 
gresses and  Committees  thus  unlawfully  established,  as  against 
open  enemies  of  the  State.  But  considering  it  a  duty  insep- 
arable from  the  principle  of  humanity  first  of  all  to  warn  the 
deluded  people  of  the  miseries  ever  attendant  upon  civil  war, 
I  do  most  earnestly  entreat  and  exhort  them,  as  they  tender 
their  own  happiness  and  that  of  their  posterity,  to  appease 
the  vengeance  of  a  jnstly  incensed  nation,  by  a  return  to 
their  duty  to  our  common  sovereign,  and  to  the  blessings  of  a 


3:3 

free  government  established  by  law ;  hereby  uli'ei-ing,  in  his 
Majesty's  name,  free  pardon  to  all  such  as  shall  lay  down 
their  arms  and  submit  to  the  laws ;  excepting  only  from  the 
henejit  of  such  jpardon  Cornelius  Harnett  and  Robert  IloioeP 

He  little  knew  how  he  was  immortalizing  the  men  whom 
he  souffht  to  render  infamous !  Harnett  continued  active  in 
the  service  of  the  State  until  1781.  In  that  year  a  British 
force  occupied  Wilmington ;  and  so  dangerous  to  the  cause  of 
the  king  was  he  esteemed,  that  the  iii"Bt  incursion  planned 
was  for  the  purpose  of  taking  him  prisoner.  In  attempting 
to  escape  from  his  enemies  he  was  taken  ill  of  the  gout  at  the 
house  of  his  friend  Col.  Spicer,  in  Onslow,  and  was  captured 
there,  and  carried  in  triumph  to  AVilmingtou.  Thus,  wreck- 
ed in  health  and  fortune  in  the  storms  which  assailed  his 
country,  he  died  soon  after  in  liis  imprisonment,  childless  and 
forlorn,  having  tirst  penned,  with  his  own  hand,  tlie  epitaph 
which  stands  above  his  grave. 

"  In  the  northeast  corner  of  the  grave  yard  of  St.  James' 
church,  in  Wilmington,  lies  the  body  of  one  than  whom  a 
nobler  and  purer  patriot  never  lived.  The  rank  grass  grows 
over  his  grave,  and  almost  hides  it  from  the  view,  as  if  it 
would  conceal  from  the  stranger  the  forgetfulness  ancf  ingrati- 
tude of  the  town.  Two  simple  brown  stones,  discolored  by 
age,  mark  the  spot.  On  the  largest,  which  is  an  upright  slab, 
is  inscribed, 

'  Cornelius  Harnktt, 

Died  April  20th,    1781, 

Aged  58  years.' 

'  Slave  to  no  sect,  he  took  no  private  road, 

But  looked  through  nature,  up  to  nature's  God.'  "* 

Tliese  were  not  all,  nor  nearly  all,  the  bright  names  of  the 
Cape  Fear  in  its  early  times.  There  were  many  others ;  but 
I  cannot  now  attempt  to  do  them  justice.  Some  of  them  I 
will  briefly  mention. 

There  was  Col.  Hugh  Waddell,  early  distinguished  in  the 
military  annals  of  the  State ;  a  sterling  patriot,  and  a  brave 
and  chivalrous  gentleman.  He  commanded  a  regiment  of 
provincial  troops  at  the  defeat  of  Braddock  in  1755.  And 
after  that  disastrous  day,  the  Indians  upon  the  frontier  having 
become  very  troublesome  to  the  settlers,  he  was  selected  as 
"  an  officer  of  great  firmness  and  integrity  "  to  lead  several 

*  Memoir  of  Harnett,  bv  G.  J.  McRee. 


34 

expeditions  against  them,  and  finally  succeeded  in  overawing- 
tliem  and  bringing  them  to  peace.*  His  conduct  and  bear- 
ing upon  the  arrival  of  the  Stamj)  ship,  if  ISTorth-Carolina 
ever  did  such  things,  would  have  won  him  a  public  monu- 
ment. I  regret  that  some  of  his  descendants  have  not  thought 
it  worth  their  while  to  vindicate  liis  claims  upon  the  grati- 
tude of  the  State. 

There  was  Samuel  Swann,  "  who  had  filled  the  Speaker's 
chair  for  nearly  twenty  years,  and  had  given  to  that  station 
a  dignity  but  little  inferior  to  that  of  the  executive,  and  much 
superior  to  that  of  a  councillor. "f  He  Avas  the  reporter  of 
the  first  Revised  Code  of  the' State,  familiarly  called  "Yel- 
low Jacket,"  from  the  color  of  its  covering ;  which  was  chiefly 
the  work  of  his  hands.  It  was  printed  by  James  Davis,  at 
JSTew  Bern,  in  1752,  and  was  the  first  book  printed  in  Korth- 
Carolina, 

There  was  Archibald  Maclaine,  an  accomplished  lawyer 
and  able  debater ;  a  man  of  talent,  learning  and  probity,  and 
an  active  and  zealous  Whig.  He  was  reputed  the  principal 
author  of  the  celebrated  Court  Law  of  1777 ;  an  act  which 
had  for  its  object  the  important  work  of  building-  up  a  judi- 
ciary system  for  the  State,  and  establishing  the  process  and 
practice  of  the  Courts.  And  such  was  its  merit,  that  it  has, 
perhaps,  been  less  altered  or  amended  than  any  act  of  any 
importance  in  the  Statute  Book.  He  was  also  a  distinguished 
member  of  the  Convention  of  1776,  which  formed  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  State,  and  was  one  of  the  eleven  commis- 
sioners appointed  by  that  Convention  to  revise  the  Statutes ^ 
"  and  to  prepare  such  bills  to  be  passed  into  laws  as  may  be 
consistent  with  the  genius  of  a  free  people,  the  fomi  of  gov- 
ernment we  have  adopted,  and  our  local  situation."  The 
result  of  the  labors  of  this  commission  may  be  seen  in  the  act 
just  mentioned,  and  many  others  which  were  passed  in  the 
yeare  immediately  succeeding — acts  which  clearly  evince  the 
ability,  learning,  and  accuracy  of  the  Commissioners,  and 
which  have  given  shape  and  tone  to  our  legislation  for  three 
quarters  of  a  century. 

There  was  WilKam  Hill,  whom  Josiah  Quincy:}:  found  "  a 
most  sensible,  polite  gentleman,  and  though  a  crown  ofiicer, 
replete  with  sentiments  of  general  liberty,  and  warmly  at- 

'  Williamson,  2— 85— OS— 95.    t  Jones,  '  90.    J  Journal,  1773. 


35 

tached  to  the  cause  of  American  Freedom."  We  need  no 
gnaranty  for  the  patriotism  of  a  man,  who  as  early  as  the  24th 
of  November,  1774,  could  write  to  the  Wihnington  Commit- 
tee as  follows  :^' 

"  *  *  *  The  safety  of  the  people  is,  or  ought  to  be  the  supreme  law. 
The  gentlemen  of  the  Committee  will  judge  whether  this  law,  or  an  act  of 
parliament,  should  at  this  particular  time,  operate  in  North-Carolina.  I 
believe  that  every  tea  importer  will  cheerfully  submit  to  their  determina- 
tion.    I  can  answfer  for,  gentlemen, 

Your  most  obedient, 

W.  HILL." 

There  was  John  Walker — "  Old  Major  Jack  " — rough  and 
eccentric,  but  a  sturdy  patriot,  honest,  bold  and  brave. 

"  A  fiery  ettercap,  a  fractious  chiel, 

As  hot  as  ginger,  and  as  stieve  as  steel." 

It  was  he  who  was  taken  while  on  a  scouting  party  and  se- 
verely flogged  by  the  Regulators ;  the  recollection  of  which 
treatment  made  him  swear  bitter  oaths  to  the  day  of  his  death. 
And  it  may  be  as  well,  for  the  truth  of  history,  to  state,  that 
his  brother  officer  who  was  taken  w^ith  him  and  flogged  at 
I  the  same  time,  was  not  Gen.  Ashe,  as  Martinf  and,  after  him, 
all  others  relate ;  but  his  nephew,  Capt.  John  B.  Ashe,  son  of 
Gov.  Samuel  Aslie. 

And  there  was  William  Hooper,  aspersed  by  Jefferson  and 
defended  by  Jones,  whom  all  now  admit  to  have  been  as 
|.  good  a  patriot  as  his  defamer,  and  incomparably  a  better  man. 
!  We  can  scarcely  now  regret  the  injustice  which  was  done  to 
,  Mr.  Hooper ;  since  it  resulted  in  the  triumphant  vindication 
I  of  him,  and  of  the  State,  from  the  pen  of  the  brilliant,  but 
I  eccentric  Jo.  Seawell  Jones.  He,  too,  has  passed  from  earth  ; 
:  and  whatever  may  have  been  his  errors,  J^orth-Carolina  owes 
1  him  a  lasting  gratitude.  Let  us  bury  his  faults  with  the  sod 
■  which  rests  upon  his  heart ;  and  remember  only  the  generous 
1  love  he  cherished,  and  the  stalwart  blows  he  struck,  for  the 
J  honor  of  his  native  State. 

My  task,  gentlemen,  is  accomplished;  how  feebly  and 
i  imperfectly,  none  know  better  tlian  myself.  My  theme, 
though  local,  has  been  purely  ISTorth-Carolinian ;  and  its 
purpose  was,  by  some  striking  examples,  not  solitary  in  their 

*  Pro.  Com.  of  Wil.,  4.    t  2—278. 


3<J 

greatness,  but  only  sinning  pagos  of  a  luminous  history,  to 
show  you  liow  rich  we  are  in  all  that  makes  the  Just  and  hon- 
orable pride  of  a  people.  The  moral  strength  of  the  true 
and  loyal  gentleman,  has  no  ingredient  so  powerful  as  an  ever 
present  pride  of  personal  character.  The  man  who  lacks  it 
may  move  without  discredit  on  the  plane  of  life's  ordinary 
level ;  but  he  can  never  ascend  to  mountain  tops,  nor  feast 
his  soul  with  the  glorious  contemplation  of  great  temptations 
nobly  fought  and  conquered.  The  undefinable  spirit  of  23a- 
triotism  has  no  element  so  powerful  as  a  high  and  justifiable 
State  pride.  The  citizen  who  cannot  feel  it,  may  punctually 
pay  his  tithe  of  mint,  annise  and  cummin  ;  but  iu  all  the 
higher  duties  of  citizetisliip,  he  will  neglect  the  weightier  mat- 
ters of  the  law.  HI  fares  it  with  the  State  which  can  appeal 
to  its  children  by  no  nobler  tie  than  a  ""  narrow  affection  for 
the  spot  where  they  were  born." 

While  rejoicing,  as  North-Carolinians,  that  the  records  of 
the  past  entitle  you  to  the  most  honorable  pride,  remember, 
that  in  so  doing  they  call  upon  you  for  the  exercise  of  the 
noblest  patriotism.  Keep  ever  green  the  memory  ol  your 
illustrious  dead.  Let  them  live  and  shine  in  your  hearts  for- 
ever ;  not  prompting  you  to  empty  boasting,  but  quickening 
every  generous  impulse,  and  stirring  in  you  the  purest  ambi- 
tion. A  rough  field  of  battle  awaits  you.  Arm  for  it  now. 
Make  yourselves  strong  while  yet  the  evil  days  come  not. 
And  while  you  stand  here  upon  the  threshold  of  the  world, 
and  looking  abroad,  see  nothing  but  the  glad  sunshine  and 
the  green  leaves  and  the  still  waters,  and  hear  the  singing 
birds,  resolve  to-day  to,  be  up  to  the  highest  mark  of  the  duty 
which  you  owe  to  yourselves,  to  the  State,  to  God,  as  men,  as 
citizens,  and  as  enlightened  Christian  gentlemen. 


